Star Wars: Tales of the Bounty Hunters (10 page)

The Emperor busied himself with a minor personal conflict between Darth Vader and another biological in his private observation chamber while the space battle raged around them.

IG-88 took control of the Death Star’s superlaser, playing along and firing when the Death Star gunners sent their signals. Many times their aiming points were slightly off, their coordinates skewed—and IG-88 modified the targeting mechanism, guaranteeing that the superlaser struck its intended victim each time. He enjoyed blowing up the Mon Calamari star cruisers, the hospital ship, the Rebel frigates—but it seemed a waste of his energies. Why stop there? The superlaser could blow up entire planets infested with biologicals.

Now, though, as IG-88 obliterated parts of the Rebel fleet, he realized that he had been unnecessarily delaying his plans for revolution. The remainder of work on the Death Star was merely cosmetic improvement, completing the outer shell so that the living quarters could be pressurized, life support systems could be installed—but IG-88 needed none of those. He wanted no biologicals swarming about in his outer skin.

He realized with an elation almost as great as the thrill he had felt upon firing his laser for the first time that he no longer needed to wait. There was no point in delaying. The Empire and the Rebels were wrapped up in their own little conflict, and he would strike a surprise, mortal blow.

Now was the time to launch the droid revolution, in the midst of this biological squabble. The machines
manufactured on Mechis III had spread to many worlds in the galaxy. The uprising would take civilizations by surprise. Once IG-88’s initial coded order was transmitted, they could upload their sentience programming into existing droids; with the speed of a flashfire, they could convert new recruits, double and triple their numbers.

IG-88 alone had the activation signal that could fly like a knife blade across the HoloNet channels and awaken his invincible army of droids. He could wish for no better opportunity than now, no greater power. He would finish mopping up this minor conflict around Endor, destroy the Rebel ships and then before the Imperials could react, he would strike down the Star Destroyers as well, one after another, in a swath of death and destruction.

The Rebel ships continued to harass him, passing far inside the targeting radius of his superlaser. They were too small to bother with, though they flew into his open superstructure toward the simmering furnace of his reactor core. The Rebels were like parasites, and they annoyed him.

But it did not matter. They would be dealt with any minute now. The end of all biological life forms was at hand.

Out in the space battle, the magnificent Super Star Destroyer
Executor
was wounded, beginning to careen out of control through the fleet.

The tiny Rebel ships streaked toward IG-88’s reactor core as if they had a chance of succeeding, and he contented himself with his own private triumphant thoughts.

I think, therefore I am
.

I destroy, therefore I endure
.

D
engar could be a patient man, when it suited his purpose. And at this moment, sitting on a high mountain ridge under a rupin tree which smelled sickly sweet and sighed softly as it breathed in the night air on Aruza, Dengar needed patience. Down on a ledge a thousand meters below, COMPNOR General Sinick Kritkeen entertained a constant string of guests in his stately mansion, graced with open-air gardens and a columned portico. One after another, the blue-white
lights of his guests’ speeders would sweep up through the mountain pass, and dignitaries would emerge—usually impoverished local lords dressed in white breechcloths and platinum necklaces, with the gold metal of their interface jacks gleaming beneath their ears. The Aruzans were small people, with faintly blue skin as lustrous as pearls, with rounded heads and hair of such a dark, dark blue it was almost black.

The Aruzans were also a soft people, unwilling or unable to do violence. And once they entered Kritkeen’s estate, they’d fall on their knees and begin begging some favor, seeking mercy for their people, and then they would leave with Kritkeen’s promise to “look into the matter,” or his solemn-sounding vow to “do my best.”

Little did Kritkeen know that tonight, once his guests had left, he would be paid a visit by one
final
caller. The impoverished citizens of Aruza, as peaceful as they were, had paid Dengar the pittance of a thousand credits to end Kritkeen’s tyranny.

It was a kilometer to Kritkeen’s mansion. Even with his boosted auditory system Dengar could not have overheard Kritkeen’s conversations. But Dengar had set up spy equipment on a tripod to aid him in his surveillance. A laser beam was trained on the glass above one large rear office window, and by measuring the vibrations of sound waves as they beat against the window, Dengar was able to make a perfect recording of Kritkeen’s final words. Dengar listened to them on a small speaker that played beneath the tripod.

Aruza’s five moons, each in pale shades of tan, silver and green, hung low over the mountains on the horizon like ornamental lights. And out over the valleys, on the warm skies of Aruza’s summer night, farrow birds would dive, letting their bioluminescent chests phosphoresce in brilliant flashes that confused and blinded small flying mammals long enough for the farrows to make an easy catch. The flashes of the farrow birds
looked almost like lighting, Dengar thought, or more like fighter ships as they dove down on their targets, firing their lasers.

And because of the birds diving and lighting the air with their chests, Dengar pulled out his heavy blaster pistol, set it to
kill
. On most worlds he would have hesitated to assassinate a dignitary with a blaster. But somehow here on Aruza, it seemed right. Kilometers away, people would see gunfire here on the hill, and they would imagine that it was only farrow birds feeding.

Dengar listened to Kritkeen’s conversation with a little man named Abano.

“O Affluent One, O Moderate One,” Abano, one of the poor Aruzan land barons was saying loudly, desperately, “I implore you. My daughter is fragile. She is much needed and much loved by her mother, and by her friends. Yet tomorrow, she is scheduled for Imperial processing in the hospital at Bukeen. You cannot let this terrible thing happen!”

“But what can I do?” Kritkeen asked, and he moved to his desk beside the window. Dengar had his cybernetic eyes set at 64X magnification, and he could see Kritkeen clearly. The man was tall, with a lean build and thick brown hair. He was perhaps a bit stockier than Han Solo, and he had a hatchet nose, but he looked enough like Solo. “I, like you, have others above me that I must serve,” Kritkeen said reasonably. “I would love to save your daughter from the processors, but even if I could rescue her, who would I send in her place? No, her number was chosen. She must be processed.”

“But, my daughter is a lovely child,” Abano pleaded. “She is gentle. She is a jewel among women. It is said that the processors will cut into her brain, remove all kindness from her, so that if she survives the hospital at all, she will come out vicious.”

“True,” Kritkeen said. “Men like me and you, we cannot understand how the Empire would want vicious
servants. But what can we do?” Dengar wondered at Kritkeen, wondered why he feigned a lack of power. It must have satisfied his sick sense of humor. COMPNOR—The Commission for the Preservation of the New Order—had sent Kritkeen to Aruza as a planetary chief of “Redesign,” with the mission of implementing “precessional orientation experiments” that would lead to “cultural mass edification” that would make Aruza “a viable social force within the New Order.” Dengar had seen Kritkeen’s orders to report, though at first he had had some initial difficulty puzzling them out. But one thing Dengar knew: On this planet, Kritkeen was god. He took orders from no one, and his orders were followed explicitly. And if Kritkeen could not edify the planet to the point that it became a “viable social force,” then the planet was to be, as the hazy orders put it, “alleviated of the potential for further evolution.” Over the weeks of travel, Dengar had finally made sense of the orders: “Round up these pacifists and turn them into a war machine. If they refuse, fry this planet until even the worms choke on the ashes.”

And so, Dengar wondered why Kritkeen played games with the locals. Kritkeen sat facing Abano and said solmenly, as if to console the little man, “I wish I could help you. But is it not better to have a daughter who is feral and alive, than one who is virtuous … and dead?”

“I would give anything to you,” Abano cried. “Anything. My daughter, Manaroo, is lovely, more beautiful than any other in the valley. She dances, and when she moves, she moves as fluidly as water under moonlight. She is more than a woman, she is a treasure. If you saw her dance, you would not send her to the processor!”

“What?” Kritkeen asked. “You would give me your daughter to be my lover?”

There was the sound of indrawn breath, the local man trying to speak his horror, for the gentle Aruzan
would never think of such a thing, and when Kritkeen understood that this was indeed not what Abano was offering, he tapped three times on his desk with his right index finger. It was a standard code in Imperial Intelligence. It was an order for the guards to terminate the conversation.

“Come this way!” a stormtrooper’s voice cut in, and moments later Dengar saw the exterior lights of the mansion come on, lighting the white columns and the graceful blue inderrin trees. Two stormtroopers dragged Abano, kicking and shouting, out to his speeder. The man climbed in fearfully, fumbling for the speeder controls.

One of the stormtroopers raised his blaster rifle, fired at Abano’s head, but missed by a span. The little man suddenly found the controls for his speeder and raced away, heading downhill.

When the stormtroopers re-entered the house, Kritkeen growled at them angrily. “You didn’t get gobbets of flesh all over the lawn, did you?”

“No, Your Excellency!” one of the stormtroopers said.

“Good,” Kritkeen said. “It attracts bomats, and I can’t abide the pests. They’re worse than these damned Aruzans.”

“We let the man escape,” the stormtrooper explained, as if unsure whether Kritkeen would be angered by the news.

“Good riddance,” Kritkeen said with a bitter scowl and a wave of the hand. “Refuse any more appointments for the night. I grow weary of their sad-eyed appeals, their whining pleas, and their repititious petitions.”

He waved at his stormtroopers, as if asking them to leave, but then thought better of it. He looked around his room. “Go to the city and bring Abano’s daughter to me. I want to see if she is as beautiful as he says. I will
have her dance. And after you have brought her, tell my wife that I will be working late.”

“What if she refuses to come?” one stormtrooper asked.

“She won’t. You know these locals, so trusting and full of hope. She can’t imagine that we would do any harm to her.”

“Very well,” the stormtroopers said, and they left out the front door.

Kritkeen hurried after them and stood in the lighted arch of the doorway, his hands behind his back, his charcoal-gray uniform looking impeccably clean. He had a firm jaw, a hatchet face. “In the morning you will come back for the woman, and take her to the processors. Find out when she will be released, and then give her a week at home, so that her family can see how the Empire has retrained their daughter. Then take Abano and his wife into the mountains, and dispose of them. I won’t have him importuning upon these premises again.”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” the guards said, and moments later they were on their own speeder, heading out.

Kritkeen walked out over his lawn to stand beside a perfectly oval reflecting pool, gazing out at the colored moons. It was a peaceful night, the sounds of trees sighing, the whistle of insects. It was a peaceful world. According to records, the people of Aruza had not had a murder on their planet in over a hundred of their years. They had forgotten how, grown soft. Through technology, they had created neural jacks that allowed them to both send and receive thoughts and emotions to one another, becoming technological empaths, sharing something of a limited group consciousness.

And so security here was lax. Kritkeen had some limited defense systems within his home—weapons, surveillance equipment, communicators that could call more guards. But he never had needed them here.
None of the gentle people of Aruza had ever challenged him. And so Kritkeen felt safe even while unguarded, standing in the open on his stately grounds.

Dengar jumped up and hurried down the mountain trail, watching in the dark, careful not to snap a branch or dislodge a rock. He ran with long strides, with incredible swiftness. The Empire had enhanced him physically, designed him for great deeds. Dengar was stronger than other men, faster. He saw better, heard much that was inaudible to men with lesser ears.

And he felt … almost nothing. Little pain. Little fear. No guilt. No love.